Advances in telephony have occurred such that full duplex audio communication between parties can be supplemented by providing full duplex video communication in tandem with full duplex audio.
It is envisioned that consumers will use videophones to converse with friends and relatives living in distant cities. Videophones are especially desirable for special occasions which consumers often videotape such as holidays, birthdays, new baby and child related accomplishments, etc. Also, other features add to the attractiveness of the videophone. For example, incorporation of a portable video camera in the videophone system would allow people to walk around their home and not only talk to someone on the other end, but also show the other person things through the camera. Further, incorporation of video message recording and retrieval functionality would allow the videophone to act analogously to today's answering machines/voice mail options. Also, remote monitoring could be implemented so that a person could check on various aspects of their home. The possibilities are numerous.
There is a need in the art to easily and inexpensively implement the aforementioned video functionality. The basic problem that has arisen is how to provide video telephony services to a customer's home or office. Primitive standalone videophone units which incorporate a screen, camera, and the like into a small telephone device have been implemented. Several drawbacks are associated with these units. It is difficult for the users to appreciate the full breadth of the video nor are these units easily adapted to realize the advanced features described above.
One viable alternative is to utilize existing cable television networks and display devices. However, to implement the videophone in a cable system, the user must be able to interact with such a device through standard mediums already found in those environments including remote controls, set-top boxes, and television sets. The user interface has many constraints imposed by usability requirements, performance requirements, and memory limitations. In addition, very compute-intensive digital audio and video signal transmission must be performed by the videophone. A user interface cannot use a significant number of processor cycles or utilize too much memory.
Also, many consumers are not computer literate, and therefore, systems which operate on personal computers or act like computers cannot satisfy the needs of a substantial segment of the consuming public, and accordingly, are impractical.
Thus, there is a need to design a user interface which can operate in a video telephony system without suffering from the above drawbacks.